Superhero 411: Captain America

Today we're featuring one of the superheroes on the American Superhero Team and delve deeper into their history. In this article, we'll be looking at probably the most patriotic superhero on the list, Captain America. Warning! Some Spoilers Ahead!
  

Captain America

Real name: Steve Rogers
First Appearance: Captain America Comics #1 (1941, Timely Comics)
Creator: Joe Simon (Writer) and Jack Kirby (Artist)

Occupation: Soldier
Religion: Protestant

Operates in: All over the place

 

Born in 1922, Steve Rogers grew up a frail youth in a poor family. His father died when he was a young child, and his mother when he was in his late teens. During the onset of World War II, Rogers was horrified by newsreel footage of the Nazis in Europe and attempted to enlist in the Army but was rejected because of his scrawny physique. Undaunted, he earnestly pleaded to be accepted so he could help and was overheard by US Army General Chester Phillips, who offered Rogers the opportunity to take part in the secret Special Operation Rebirth. Rogers agreed and was taken to a secret laboratory and introduced to Professor Reinstein, the creator of the Super-Soldier formula. After weeks of tests, Rogers was given the serum and a special treatment to accelerate and stabilize the serum's effects. Rogers body quickly developed into a perfection of human physique, but a Nazi spy who had infiltrated the experiment murders Reinstein after the success so that the United States can not reproduce the experiment as Reinstein had not written down the full formula for fear the Nazi would steal it. Rogers was then put through intense physical and tactical training before being given his first assignment, to stop the Nazi agent calling himself the Red Skull, and given the patriotic uniform and codename Captain America. Fighting valiantly during the war, as the Allied forces were closing in on Berlin and the last of the Nazi forces, a desperate Nazi official launched a bomb-loaded plane that would head straight for American soil. Captain America jumped onto the plane as it took off and managed to bring it down in the Arctic Ocean, where his Super-Soldier formula allowed him to enter a state of suspended animation as he was frozen in solid ice. Decades later he was rescued by the newly formed Avengers and became a cornerstone of the team, often acting as team leader, and continues to act as a symbol of liberty and justice.

Captain America was conceived with a rough sketch of the character in costume in 1940 by Joe Simon (a copy of which is seen to the right), first under the name Super America before being changed to Captain America, and was quickly given his own solo comic, which Simon would write and Jack Kirby would draw will adding his own ideas to story. Captain America soon became the most popular character of Marvel Comics, then called Timely Comics, during World War II, with the first issue selling nearly a million copies. Given the comic's decisive attitude to America entering the war a full year before the Pearl Harbor Attack would see America join the Allies and a strong isolationist front in America at the time, Simon and Kirby received regular hate mail and death threats, so much so that they had to be given police protection. However the character was so popular he became the company's first property to be adapted into another medium with the release of the 1944 movie serial Captain America, but his popularity waned after the war ended and disappeared in the 1950s after an ill-fated revival attempt in 1953. However a reintroducing during the Silver Age of comics, where he was revealed to have fallen into and be revived from suspended animation in The Avengers #4 (1964). Captain America has had a solid presence since, with his most recent adaptations being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Captain America: The First Avenger, released on July 22, 2011, and The Avengers, released on May 4, 2012.